Mint Me

We love mint. And the one I use most often is spearmint. I was introduced to this lovely herb when I met my husbands extended family in Cleveland Ohio. They are of Arabic decent and well, you can imagine food in their home. That is where I found my love for the Mediterranean diet, and more specifically the Middle Eastern diet.

But the one thing that caught me completely off guard and something I fell in love with wholeheartedly was their Fattoush Salad and this is the one salad my non vegetable eating son will woof down. He loves fruit and could probably be a fruititarian, but this salad keeps bringing him to thee other side.

I had brought back some mint from my family on my last visit from Ohio and my mint flourished greatly, until last year, then my crop just up and died. So this year I vowed to start an herb garden and mint was on the top of the list. And for right now that stuff is taking off like wildfires as is the basil, oregano, curly parsley and we are waiting to see what the sage and rosemary do. they have been planted but do not seem to have taken good root yet. Keep your fingers crossed for them and us.

So yesterday, being good weather and all, I traipsed outside, and took the mint down to the skivvies. Luckily it will grow right back and in full force. I also trimmed the basil back, came in the house and began to dehydrate them. I had 4 trays. One of basil and three of mint. The house smelled so fragrant. What I did forget to do was keep some fresh mint aside to make some tea. But hey, I can walk back outside and clip some more HAH!

This is the picture of my trimmed mint before we stripped it off the stem and laid it in the trays to be dried out.